The present application relates to a power supply system for supplying power via a cable connected to a plate main body which can be installed in a battery housing section of battery-driven electronic equipment, a power supply plate making up the power supply system, and electronic equipment driven by power supplied from the power supply plate.
In a digital camera and other electronic equipment using a primary cell such as dry battery or a secondary cell such as lithium-ion battery, a power supply plate has been used in a battery housing section rather than a primary cell or battery. The power supply plate is designed to supply power from a home power source through a terminal provided on the battery housing section and is used at home and in stores for long hours (See Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2006-229357 (Patent Document 1)).
Further, among such pieces of equipment there are some that have been proposed to include a lithium-ion battery and power supply plate which have a standardized shape, and a shared housing section capable of accommodating the lithium-ion battery or power supply plate. Electronic equipment having such a shared housing requires no DC power input terminal to be provided on any of the enclosure areas other than the battery housing section, thus permitting size reduction of the enclosure and cost reduction.
With such electronic equipment having a shared housing section, it is necessary to determine whether either the power supply plate's main body or the battery is installed. There are the following existing methods for the electronic equipment to determine which of the battery and power supply plate is installed in the shared housing section.
The first method consists of providing, on the enclosure of each of the battery and the power supply plate, a discrimination groove adapted to identify itself from the other. Alternatively, switches are provided which are adapted to be pressed respectively when the battery and the power supply plate are installed. This allows electronic equipment to determine which of the battery and power supply plate is installed.
The second method consists of disposing output terminals on the battery and the power supply plate at different positions from each other. Then, by disposing input terminals of the shared housing section of electronic equipment at positions associated with the positions of the output terminals, electronic equipment can determine which of the battery and power supply plate is installed.
On the other hand, authentication has been performed between a digital still camera or other electronic equipment and a battery adapted to supply power to the electronic equipment to verify whether the battery is an authentic one compatible with specific electronic equipment. This authentication is conducted because some non-authentic batteries do not include a protective circuit to prevent overcharge or overcurrent.
For this reason, authentic and dedicated batteries have included an information output terminal adapted to output their identification information, in addition to positive and negative terminals for purposes of power supply. Such electronic equipment performs an authentication process to verify whether the attached battery is authentic based on the battery identification information from the information output terminal.
Further, it has been common to perform authentication between portable electronic equipment and a battery adapted to supply power to the electronic equipment to verify whether the battery is an authentic one compatible with specific electronic equipment. This authentication is conducted because some non-authentic batteries do not include a protective circuit to prevent overcharge or overcurrent.
For this reason, authentic and dedicated batteries have included an information output terminal adapted to output their identification information, in addition to positive and negative terminals for purposes of power supply. Portable electronic equipment performs an authentication process to verify whether the attached battery is authentic based on the battery identification information from the information output terminal.